Kiss Of Twilight (6 page)

"I didn't say that." The scowl was back, along with burning irritation. Why was she intentionally misunderstanding him? He used to be smooth with women. He used to know what to say. "Gia's job is too much for one person." Thank God he caught himself before he said
too much for you.

Not that it mattered. She heard it anyway. How did a human woman with no telepathic ability always seem to know what he was thinking anyway? Her sigh was gusty and full of exasperation. She gripped the sides of the tub and stood. Water ran from her skin and he had to force himself not to lean forward and lick the drops off. Instead he stood, grabbed a towel from the shelf behind him and stepped forward to wrap it around her. He lifted her over the edge onto the thick bath mat, but she twisted away and didn't let him help as she stepped around him and limped into the bedroom.

If he had any sense he'd accept the cold shoulder for what it was and get the hell out of her room. Sense was apparently no longer part of his psychological make-up. The thing he wanted most, and denied himself always, was right in front of him. Practically naked. It would be so easy to stalk her across the room, slowly lean down so she saw the intent in his eyes, and claim her lips. It would have to be slow, controlled. Kissing her, tasting her, loving her. He couldn't trust himself any other way. He'd half made the decision to make his move when the phone clipped to his waist started beeping. Then hers, which she'd dropped on the nightstand, started up. He stared at them a second. Fuck it. Whatever it was could wait.

But she was picking hers up, sliding it open,
talking
to someone before he could act. He struggled with his demon, who didn't understand why the fuck they weren't taking the woman, while she turned her back on him and walked to her closet. Clean jeans were tossed out, followed by a T-shirt. Then she was at the dresser and pulling out undergarments. The surprise of seeing red lacy scraps of fabric in her hands was enough to shut up the demon. For a minute at least. She didn't drop the towel until she'd shimmied into her panties and jeans. Next came the bra and shirt. Then she opened the top drawer of her nightstand and pulled out the shoulder holster that held her gun.

His desire immediately dampened as he remembered why he'd sought her out in the first place. "Were you going to tell me about what happened at the law office?"

She gave him an arch look as she slid into the holster straps. "So you could freak out on me? Nope."

At least she didn't try to pretend like she didn't know what he was talking about, but her nonchalant attitude didn't help his control. He wanted to shake some sense into her. Wanted her to understand the terror that had gripped him when Mitchell had filled him in a couple hours ago. And he never would have known if he hadn't stopped by the lupine den to touch base with the alpha lupine.

"So you just weren't going to tell anyone?"

"I told Winter."

And neither one of them had seen fit to tell him. He couldn't believe how much that hurt.

"Do you remember what you said to me at the lupine lair?"

She tilted her head to the side and he imagined wheels in her mind turning as she tried to figure out what he was getting it. "I said a few things."

"You said I scared you, getting injured."

She gave him a half smile. "No, I said you scared the
hell
out of me."

"Right." He stepped close enough to set his hands on her wrists and stroke them up her arms. He couldn't help himself. He had to touch her. Had to prove to himself she was all right. "Don't do that to me again, darlin'."

"You know I can't promise that."

That was not the answer he wanted to hear. He leaned his forehead against hers and fought to control the fear. "At least don't make me hear about another incident from Mitchell."

She hesitated so long he expected she wouldn't agree to even that concession. "Okay. But you have to promise not to freak out."

He laughed and gave her a quick hard kiss. "I promise I'll eventually calm down."

Her eyes narrowed and Dupree forced himself to step into the hall. If he stayed he'd have to kiss the irritation out of her and neither of them was ready for that yet. He softly shut the door behind him before his baser instincts got the better of him.

His phone beeped again and he flipped it open to check his messages. The first was an update from Lance. Thankfully not more bitching about patrols with the nightwalkers, but an update on recruiting new members. Dupree grunted when he skimmed through it. Four wasn't nearly enough to replace what they'd lost but it was a start at least. The second was from Winter wondering if he was ever going to bother reporting in. Mating hadn't tamed her snarky attitude one bit. Grinning, he went down the stairs two at a time and found her lounging on the leather sofa in Marcus's study. She had a sheaf of papers in one hand and a water bottle in the other. She looked up when he entered but went right back to whatever she was reading.

He grabbed a soda from the mini-fridge and took the chair beside her. Sighing, she sat up, swinging her feet to the floor and putting the bottle on the small table next to the sofa. Then she handed him a sheet of paper. It had the Order's seal--two knights on one horse, emblazed in gold and blue--across the top so he knew it was an official notification of some kind from the council. He started to skim the document, jerked to a halt midway through and went back to the beginning to read it more carefully. He looked up with a scowl.

"They can't be serious."

She shrugged. "It would appear that they are. Needless to say, the job's yours."

"In the interest of fostering order and cohesion," he read, "the regional commanders will resume appointing both a master at arms and first chaplain." He paused. "Order and cohesion? Is that a dig at us?"

"Probably." Her irritation got the better of her and she stood to pace. "When was the last time a regional commander went rogue? We should have seen it sooner.
I
should have. And then so many mistakes were made. So many lost."

"That wasn't your fault," he pointed out.

"Wasn't it?"

He just shook his head. None of them had known when Ben went rogue. They'd believed he was killed during the attack on his compound. It was several days later when the forensics team finished their analysis that they'd discovered he wasn't among the dead. Unfortunately, there had been another compound attack and then another attack once everyone had been moved to the safe houses. It had all happened so fast they'd been reeling. The destruction at the commander's compound, Winter's elevation to commander, discovering Ben was rogue, the subsequent attacks... It was no wonder mistakes had been made in that confusion.

"If they blamed you, you wouldn't still be commander," he pointed out.

"Hell, I'm still not sure why they made me commander."

Gia would know how to answer that better than Dupree could. "Ben recommended you as his replacement."

Ben had expected to retire with his wife soon, who'd died a few days before he went rogue. He'd spent years grooming Winter to take his place, and Dupree suspected, he'd intended Kara to follow Winter. He'd overseen Kara's training and education, had started her working with Gia when she was a teenager looking to make some pocket money. Dupree didn't share any of those thoughts with Winter now since he was still counting on talking Kara out of merging.

"Ben, Todd and Gray went way back so Gray wasn't likely to go against that recommendation. Why would he? Ben was sane when he made it," Dupree reminded her.

Gray, Ben and Todd Brant had joined the Order in the same year and spent decades in the same quad fighting together. Todd was the southern region's council representative now and Gray was the Grand Master, the seventh member of the council. The council elected the Grand Master from their membership, but Grand Masters could and had been stripped of their rank in the past, though it was a rare occurrence. Once removed from his position a Grand Master was reduced to begging sanctuary from his home region. That had never happened in Dupree's lifetime.

"You think Gray and Todd are endangered because of Ben's betrayal?" Winter speculated.

Dupree shook his head. "It would be stupid if they were. Ben going rogue isn't a reflection on them any more than it is on us."

They both knew that was true, but Winter's expression remained thoughtful. "Appeasement," she said softly and didn't have to continue for Dupree to catch her drift.

It was common knowledge among the highest ranking hybrids that the council was often filled with friction. If questioned they'd say it was a contest of wills between traditionalists and modernists. Dupree wasn't so easily fooled. It had nothing to do with belief or conviction. Taking a hard or soft line was nothing more than a power play. Normally he didn't give a rat's ass what those old men got up to since their posturing never came to anything. Or hadn't.

Bringing back the master at arms rank was one thing. Whatever he was called that was already Dupree's job. Training, recruitment and assignments were his purview and would remain so. The appointing of masters at arms had only fallen out of use in the last few decades. Naming first chaplains hadn't been done in much longer, however.

"Have you told Mike about this?" Every region around the world had at least one Catholic priest assigned to it. Mike Halloran was theirs.

"Not yet." She sighed. "He won't like it."

No, probably not. Mike had been with them since he'd first been ordained, some thirty years now. He couldn't bond with a demon since he was a priest and bound by that pesky chastity vow. He wouldn't be able to mate later in life when he started to lose control to the demon. Remaining human hadn't affected his devotion to the Order or its varying membership, however. He'd been instrumental in recruiting holy men of other faiths to their ranks. As a result they had the most religiously diverse membership in the world. Dupree was pretty sure Mike would see appointing a first chaplain as a step backward even if the majority of the local hybrids remained Catholic. Mike was a big believer in a path for everyone and as long as you followed one, he didn't much care if it differed from his, though he did enjoy a lively theology debate.

"I'll see him when we're done here," Winter said. "What else? There's no hint in this--" she held up the paper, "--that they know about Baas yet. Has Tim said when he'll have results?"

"A couple days probably. He's doing all the work himself." So they could keep it quiet. "I've got the updated numbers from Lance. Four new recruits this week, which brings us to a total of ten since we took over." A lousy showing considering their losses.

"Better than we had before. Tell him to keep at it."

"Yeah. I'm still running day patrols, but I'm going to start decreasing the number I send out. Everyone's burned out and the daylight attacks have slowed down considerably. We'll still focus on downtown and the north and west part of the city and suburbs. That's where the majority of the reports are coming in."

"So likely that's where the new lair is."

He shook his head. "Don't make any assumptions."

They'd already learned that lesson the hard way. Ben going rogue had been bad enough, but everything else that had happened over the following weeks had blown Order assumptions out of the water. Suddenly demons who should have been lethargic, if not unconscious, during the day were out and fighting, led by an overload, which hadn't been seen on Earth in centuries. And instead of going rogue and insane and hunted down by his own, Ben had not only ingratiated himself with the demons, he'd exploited the Order's darkest secrets to make himself stronger.

The good news was the warlord was dead by Winter's hand. The bad news was they still hadn't found Ben, but no doubt he was now the one leading the surviving demons. Dupree didn't even want to consider how strong he'd have to be to control so many demons when his body, at least, was still half human.

"Anything else?"

"Has Kara brought up--" He stopped abruptly. He couldn't bring himself to finish the question.

"You're going to have to accept that it's gonna happen, Dupree. She's going to merge with a demon and after that, unless you bond with her, I'll have to kill you. Can we not go that route?"

He scowled at her. "Not everything is written in stone."

She arched an eyebrow. "Some things are. You bond or you die. You know that."

He couldn't argue with that. "True. But she doesn't have to merge."

"She's an adult. She grew up in the Order. She knows better than most what she's in for."

"No, she doesn't. She just thinks she does." She had no idea what it was like feeling the demon crawl through your body, your mind, your
soul.

"She knows more than you give her credit for," Winter said softly, like she'd heard his thoughts. Hell, she probably had. There wasn't a telepath in the region who could match her. "Talk to her, Dupree."

"Why won't you just deny her application?" The closer her birthday got the more desperate he got.

"Ten," she reminded him. "Ten new recruits and we've lost over a hundred."

"This is not about numbers," he growled.

"Yes it is and you know it. She's much more qualified than any of the others we're bringing in too. Hell, she's been training since she was four years old. Your personal feelings don't enter into recruitment, Dupree. If it was anyone else we would not be having this conversation."

He knew that, but he sure as hell didn't like being called out on it. He'd never asked the Order for anything. He'd done his duty, served where ordered and never complained even though he knew his soul was more endangered with each passing year. Was it too much to ask to save one woman from his fate? To save her for his own? He kept all those words to himself. Winter was being just as stubborn as Kara about the situation. Dupree would have to find a better argument against her merging. It wouldn't be enough to convince Kara but might be for Winter. In the meantime, he needed to keep some distance from them both. He was too close to the edge. He'd never forgive himself if he lost control.